US Video Game Sales Slump in December

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
The overall sales of video games was in decline again keeping with the trend set earlier in the Fall. December’s numbers lost ground, but the total overall sales of games, accessories and consoles rose two percent.

US consumer spending on new video game hardware rose 28 percent in December to $1.37 billion from $1.07 billion a year earlier, according to industry researcher
Click to expand...
 
Well when you're paying $500 per console and 2 just came out with NO Killer apps, you're going to sell more hardware than games.
 
When we all buy 20+ games on Steam for . . . $5 or less each, the dollar amount may be down, but the total number of units sold goes way up.
 
Steam sales were up, but console game sales were down. Consoles are dying. ;)
 
Well I did my part in December. I purchased 2 Nintendo 3DS consoles (for the kids) and two games each. As well as 1 Zelda 3DSXL Console bundle with two extra games for it. Plus WiiFit balance board with two WiiFitU Meters.

And of course like others have said...Steam. My kids got their own Steam accounts with 5 games each (purchased during the Steam sale of course).

Yeah, December was all about games and pretty much only games for us.
 
I'm waiting to hear about how terrible the Xbone and PS4 sales are going to be. It won't happen until late February or early March, I imagine. As much as people want to shit on Nintendo for terrible Wii U sales, Nintendo isn't alone. A lot more people were excited about the Xbone/PS4 systems, but there's less games that make it worth owning. So I think those machines hit a harder wall then Nintendo has.

The required monthly fee for multiplayer will play a factor for both consoles. Even though Xbox has done this for years, but those who didn't want to pay for a feature that's been free for PS3, will have to for PS4.

Also, I have a 101 reasons why I think Playstation Now or cloud gaming won't ever take off. Besides the additional monthly fee, my #1 problem is going to be input lag. Doesn't matter if you have Google Fiber, you will not fix input lag.

This is them demoing Playstation Now.
mgqpke.gif
 
Pretty simple.

If you want to rack up sales, you have to give people a reason to buy your stuff.

Simply nothing was any good in December to buy.

the Hardware sales went up a little bit because people bought new next-Gen consoles, but honestly the titles were weak; that and even PC gaming had little new to offer.

I bought some older stuff off Steam sales, too.
 
I wonder how much the season played into it. A lot of people probably bought games back around black Friday for gifts and maybe some people didn't want to buy anything for themselves in the event somebody else got it for them. on top of that no new games came out that I can think of.
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm waiting to hear about how terrible the Xbone and PS4 sales are going to be. It won't happen until late February or early March, I imagine. As much as people want to shit on Nintendo for terrible Wii U sales, Nintendo isn't alone. A lot more people were excited about the Xbone/PS4 systems, but there's less games that make it worth owning. So I think those machines hit a harder wall then Nintendo has.

The required monthly fee for multiplayer will play a factor for both consoles. Even though Xbox has done this for years, but those who didn't want to pay for a feature that's been free for PS3, will have to for PS4.

Also, I have a 101 reasons why I think Playstation Now or cloud gaming won't ever take off. Besides the additional monthly fee, my #1 problem is going to be input lag. Doesn't matter if you have Google Fiber, you will not fix input lag.

This is them demoing Playstation Now.
mgqpke.gif
Click to expand...

wow, that is very horrible. Which I have wanted to see how lag is when you try that streaming from a gaming pc to the steam box
 
Exavior said:
wow, that is very horrible. Which I have wanted to see how lag is when you try that streaming from a gaming pc to the steam box
Click to expand...

Streaming from a local net shouldn't be this bad. This is done through the internet with like 5 people on the service. Can you imagine what it's like with hundreds of thousands of people using it?

Also, I can't imagine Sony using real PS3's in a server somewhere. They have to have x86 servers running an emulator, or native x86 versions of their PS3 games. I'd take either of those over this cloud nonsense.
 
Ashbringer said:
Streaming from a local net shouldn't be this bad. This is done through the internet with like 5 people on the service. Can you imagine what it's like with hundreds of thousands of people using it?

Also, I can't imagine Sony using real PS3's in a server somewhere. They have to have x86 servers running an emulator, or native x86 versions of their PS3 games. I'd take either of those over this cloud nonsense.
Click to expand...

http://mobile.extremetech.com/lates...dware-with-eight-ps3s-on-a-single-motherboard

8 PS3's on one motherboard squished together in a server environment.
 
Ashbringer said:
I'm waiting to hear about how terrible the Xbone and PS4 sales are going to be. It won't happen until late February or early March, I imagine. As much as people want to shit on Nintendo for terrible Wii U sales, Nintendo isn't alone. A lot more people were excited about the Xbone/PS4 systems, but there's less games that make it worth owning. So I think those machines hit a harder wall then Nintendo has.

The required monthly fee for multiplayer will play a factor for both consoles. Even though Xbox has done this for years, but those who didn't want to pay for a feature that's been free for PS3, will have to for PS4.

Also, I have a 101 reasons why I think Playstation Now or cloud gaming won't ever take off. Besides the additional monthly fee, my #1 problem is going to be input lag. Doesn't matter if you have Google Fiber, you will not fix input lag.

This is them demoing Playstation Now.
mgqpke.gif
Click to expand...

That's worse than when I was streaming Borderlands 2 from my pc to my Ouya with Kainy at launch with a cheap ass Linksys N 300mbps running in legacy mode so it wasn't even getting 150 and torrents running on my G Tablet.
*cough*
Uhm, that looks pretty bad.
 
temujin987 said:
if this was dark/demon's souls people would say "b-b-but it adds to the challenge you casual scum!" :p
Click to expand...

No, no they wouldn't. Even Dark Souls relies on split second timing, and no matter how hardcore you are, you'll get frustrated to hell and back for delayed input.

For some reason a lot of tech people seem to think the input lag in cloud gaming is a non issue, and it was solved somehow or will be solved with high speed internet. But anyone who knows about networking knows that a bigger pipe does not lower latency, only proximity will lower latency. Also things like less hops and what not. Gaikai does not have a magic button somewhere that will change this.

From the people I've heard that used the service, they all experienced the delay. It's extremely bad if you play a game like Street Fighter. But, for some reason they always seem to forgive it, as they claim it to be tolerable. Blinded by money if you ask me.

Game companies need to seriously stop trying to screw over their customers for some sort of sales reliability. I've heard GameStop is advertising that the Xbox One does not prevent used games from working on their console. Goes to show that people remember that shit from summer of 2013 that Microsoft has retracted, but it's probably still effecting their sales.

That goes double for cloud gaming, which like I said there's a 101 reasons why it's bad, but #1 would be input lag. If Sony wanted backwards compatibility for the PS4, they could have done a better job then Playstation Now. I seriously doubt you could play games you already own on the service. You'd have to buy the game again, for a fee.
 
temujin987 said:
if this was dark/demon's souls people would say "b-b-but it adds to the challenge you casual scum!" :p
Click to expand...

Not sure how they can get away with such a terrible port around here. I guess if I'm ever going to sell people trash I'll just make sure it's difficult trash (and yes I own the game and I've finished it.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top